Iíve completed the last of the pre-siege British legation wallsÖ the last of the five legation pre-siege wall projects. By the close of the weekend I hope to have the Milliput bases on the pre-siege British legation walls. Iím a little tired of building at this point so once the Milliput bases are complete I think Iíll start painting some figures for the project. I should note that the main British legation building shown in the attached picture will not be part of the pre-siege version of the legation... too bunkered. I will probably use a somewhat similar Ian Weekley building.IMG_1875 by Richard Garretson, on Flickr

FifteensAway, I finished up the Milliput basing for the last of my pre-siege legation compounds (British) so that brings my scratch building of any consequence to a close. I plan to start painting figures this week. With that said, my contribution here comes to a close, and I will now take my place as an eager viewer of you progress. Let me say once again (I'm sure I said this on an earlier page of this thread), I am really enjoying the experience of working on the same project, with basically the same core materials at the same time as another person who appears to be as crazy as I am. I will continue to applaud, ask questions, and share something I have found. I decided to post a thread of each of the five legations' pre-siege wall project I have completed... someone else might want to do the same and a concise record of my efforts (good and bad) might be helpful. Look forward to watching your progress and knowing you are a willing source of information when I am at a loss. Richard

I am currently 'distracted' by prepping the Blue Moon buildings for painting - I've cleaned the generally minimal flash off of all the legation compounds, walls, and the currently owned ruins. I'm contemplating ordering some more ruins from them but no final decision yet. Still need to clean all of the Chinese buildings. Then on to washing in a VERY mildly soapy water (run water first, hot, add a drop or two of detergent to a gallon or so and swirl with fingers), then rinse and dry. After dry, prime with a flat white leaning off white. Then comes adding some 'color' to the walls without over powering the off white. (Hints and tips gladly accepted.)

I have decided I will use five different tile roof colors: red, green, blue, yellow, and brown. Maybe orange for number six - that way each legation can have a different color. Excepting for the British legation, haven't located any specifics so artistic license is given full (well, reasonable) rein.

Slowly starting to 'see' the vision of ramps for the walls. I'll probably build two that come down from the top of the wall and meet close together at ground level. Since I'm building towards a game, this allows a defensible place for the Legation forces should the wall get overrun. Though if that happens, quite a disaster for most of the legations. RETREAT to the British compound, north end if you please!

FifteensAway, I hope your thoughts on ramp development are progressing. I just finished my first week without building walls of some type for the Boxer Rebellion collection. It was my first week of painting 15s in nearly two years, and it began slow. These time gaps always leave me with the feeling that I have forgotten how to paint in the scale I have been away from for a long period. Fortunately I finally picked up the brush and began re-establishing my feeling for painting 15s and as this week ended I had 36 Boxers completed, and I'm pretty happy with the way they came out. Looking forward to seeing your ramps. Richard

Decisions made regarding the ramps - and the bastions - and I even set up the Dremel with the right tool for cutting the walls to fit the bastions. Afraid that's as far as I've gotten. Just busy with higher priority real life stuff. And then there is the pending kitchen remodel and more that's going to be very disruptive. But I keep moving forward whenever I can steal a moment or two.

FifteensAway, thought I would drop by since we haven't talked for awhile. Based on previous postings by you, you're life is pretty full right now with non-miniature things. For the last month my hobby time has been given to painting Boxers. As of this morning I have finished painting 222 Boxers... all Old Glory 15s and Frontier. I have about 30 more (ballpark) Frontier and Old Glory figures to do before I shift over to painting my Blue Moon Boxers with some Old Glory 15s sharing their bases. I'm having a good time back in the 15mm groove. Look forward to seeing you having time for the Tartar Wall project once again. Richard

I had a very pleasant surprise today. As indicated in a previous post all of the Boxers I have painted thus far have been Old Glory 15s and Frontier. Today I prepped the first batch of Blue Moon and when I opened a pack of the Boxers with swords, I discovered that all 30 figures in that pack were different... no two exactly alike. I wasn't expecting that.

Not every Blue Moon pack has all unique figures but they have the most profound diversity of sculpts within their ranges of all I am aware of - and usually by a very broad margin. They must have some very fast sculptors locked up in a dungeon somewhere working desperately for their freedom.

FifteensAway, I have a question for you regarding the Blue Moon Boxer command pack. In that pack there are figures with four musical instruments: a drum, symbols, a traditional horn/like a brass trumpet, and something that looks like a horn made from a gourd. It is the gourd-like piece that I don't understand. It does not appear to have an opening where the sound would be expected to come out. What do you know about this? I could use the help. Hope thing are going well with you. Richard

Well, I don't have specific knowledge but I'd consider these points: I've never seen or heard of a gourd as a 'wind' instrument (but as rattles) and from the looks of the figure on the OG25 website it looks more like a conch to me and I have seen conchs - or sea snails, if you like - used as 'wind' instruments. I plan to paint mine based on the conch concept. I'd pull out my own figures as a double check but they are behind a 6' x 6' x 20' pile of kitchen shelving in my garage waiting to get installed in our now gutted kitchen. Fun, fun fun.